


Kingfisher

by annhellsing



Category: Maleficent (Disney Movies)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Escapism, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Human/Fae Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21741325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annhellsing/pseuds/annhellsing
Summary: The world is cruel on either side of the newly-erected bridge. But Borra finds that people -yes, even humans- can be a form of escape from it.
Relationships: Borra (Disney)/Reader
Comments: 12
Kudos: 126





	1. Together

**Author's Note:**

> posted this forever ago on my tumblr and forgot to put it up here bc?? kinda proud of it, actually!

The roses have their own language, rambling back and forth, sharing gossip. In all your life you never considered that nature might be dead, but there’s so much language to learn.

The tall grass hugs your thighs, kisses the tops of your hands as your palms meet their feathery tips. It’s all very warm, here, if you’d known that then a silly bridge or lack thereof might not have been enough to hold you back.

But it was, for many years, it was. Though you heard stories about horrors and thorns, everything is so gentle around the edges. Warm as blood, soft as water.

There’s a list of things you’re forbidden to touch, it’s tucked in your pocket. Nothing that glows, nothing that’s a home to any manner of creature. But most of the flora are permitted in small amounts. Anything edible is fine.

The baker’s wife mentioned a rampion patch a hundred and sixty paces from the bridge. And she did say to turn slightly to the left after that, continuing for another sixty. But you’ve long since lost count, pushing deeper into the woods that, even this early in the morning look as bright and welcoming as noon.

So much is there to see that for a moment you forget the purpose of your journey. Enough food for a decent dinner matters very little to you, now. The tall grass calls and you’ve been awake since before sun-up.

It could be evil magic, you suppose. The witch put people to sleep, didn’t she? But this bone-weariness is no stranger to you, even the beauty of the moors is filled ever so slightly by still-encroaching exhaustion. You’ve one rest day to your name, the roses whisper. Why not rest a while?

Your basket hangs limply at your elbow. You stop, a hundred paces from where you’re supposed to be. In the golden grass, you kneel and make yourself comfortable on your side. A half hour couldn’t hurt, then it would be back to work. You close your eyes, one hand tucked under your cheek like a pillow and you sleep.

—

There is so much light around him. It’s heady and warm, he could fall upward forever into the chasm of blue sky. He’s been dreaming about it. He flies until his wings ache from the joint at his shoulder blades to their very tips. And he must rest, then, tragically.

Borra is disturbingly similar to the humans in that way, bound by exhaustion. Perhaps defined by it. But most embarrassing of all is his capacity for being overwhelmed. There is so much. He says it with a smile to Maleficent who gives a knowing nod every time. The roses, they talk! The brooks know exactly where they are going! Oh, she tilts her head, of course they do.

His powerful wings protest against this long without sleep. But he’s crawled through tunnels and holes for ages, no light except the ambient glow of the moon. Even the sun, in that cave, looked sick and pale. There is so much colour, now, a flush on every cheek and a gleam in every eye. Borra starts looking for a safe place to sleep.

Habit calls him to the gnarled oak near the tall grass field. Little bidding spots are familiar, quiet and dark. When thinks smell like damp soil and warm life then he knows he’s home. He angles his wings skyward and lets himself fall a little faster. He lands with a practiced ease and a heavy gust of wind that bends all life around him. The sunshine sparkles on the tops of the grass, it’s dazzling and Borra finds it difficult to look over his shoulder to where he’ll sleep.

Holes are for hiding in, that’s why he likes them. And it’s been months of unlearning the need to hide, though one can never be too careful. He steps forward, hesitantly, looking at the soft grass with their wheat-like tips. Soft as any mattress a human might sleep on, he thinks. He’d certainly be warm enough.

He takes another step into the grassland and folds his wings against his back. It’s been a long time since he slept anywhere resembling a nest, hesitantly he sits down. Borra pauses to revel in being correct, this will do quite nicely. The sky above is otherwise empty, as well, he shouldn’t be bothered. The grass rustles as he unfolds a wing and curls it protectively around him. Some habits never die.

—

You wake and the sky has moved somewhat. The clouds, if there were any have all gone and you’re left looking at late-morning. Grass clings to your skirt as you stand, stretching and making a grab for your empty basket. It’s only when you turn that you stop. There’s a shape, brown against the gold some distance away.

The fear is sharp as pain, but you remind yourself that only poachers die here. You know what you’re not meant to take, and you’re certainly no thief. Whatever it is, you’ll look at it and leave it in peace. Isn’t that to be expected when a whole world’s suddenly open to you?

Yes, you decide. It is. You start forward in the grass and the rustling is surely loud enough to wake the thing. But wake it does not. It must be very tired, you think, unless it’s a rock of some kind. Still, you’ve never heard of a rock that has feathers.

It’s a moment before you realize what they are, and you’ve already strayed too close. With a start, you pull back, terrified. It could be her, the witch. The one with the curses, even if the story about her was mostly lie. You bite your lower lip to keep afraid sounds inside. 

But then the massive, dusty-brown wing shifts. There are horns, yes, but no helmet. No death-pale skin and blood-lips. You cock your head to the side.

It’s a man. Or, not quite. It is a he, perhaps. And he’s beautiful.

His skin is ruddy and rough-looking, the horns growing from his head blend seamlessly against his scalp. You’re intrigued with the sharp jut of his cheekbones and wild, blond hair that obscures part of his face.

You know what he is, there’s no doubt he’s like the witch. But you don’t know him. The sun shifts overhead and still he does not wake, still, you can see is chest rise and fall. A little ways away, you sit and watch and wait.

—

Borra wakes slowly when there is no threat. Or at least when he thinks there are none. His eyes flutter open, he blinks back sleep and retracts a heavy wing from where it shields him. The light is brilliant, it warms his face and he considers the day. Must be close to afternoon, he figures, that’s enough time spent sleeping.

He’s not afraid when he does see you, especially when you’re so plainly trying not to frighten. Your eyes are cast upward, you’re sitting with your boots and stockings off and your feet in the earth. His time in the moors has been brief by comparison, but he’s yet to see a human wander in so brazenly. Rules are rules no more, but he can smell the fear across the river.

Either you have none or you’re very stupid, he thinks.

“Hullo,” you say, it’s more of a whisper, “thought you might be dead, was startin’ to worry just a bit.”

Stupid, then. Perhaps.

“I was sleeping,” is his curt response. You nod.

“Oh, yes, I can see that now. Was just a joke, somethin’ to make you smile,” you explain. You eye him with unabashed uncertainty. “On account of you glarin’ at me somethin’ fierce.”

“Humans do not come here,” it’s said like it’s common fact, you bristle.

“Aye, they haven’t much before now. But there’s been some changes, see—” it occurs to him that you might think him stupid, his snarl is involuntary and you shrink in the grass. But you do not stand up, otherwise you stay very still.

“I know of the bridge. But even still, humans stay away,” he insists. You look at your basket. His eyes harden. “Why are you here?”

“I have a friend who comes here every so often, she told me the way and where to find somethin’ called rampion. But I got a bit lost, lookin’ at all the— well, you see it,” and your face turns to the sun again, a flower seeking heat. Like the roses, you talk almost in your own language.

Bora’s eyes —you hadn’t seen them before because he was sleeping— are like amber, hard and orange. You want to shrink again, to flinch at the way he stares at you. He knows Aurora, the queen of two countries but you dress very little like her. Your kirtle is wool, a pasty-green colour with a frayed edge. Patches dot it in shades that almost match the original, but not quite.

You’re no princess, he doesn’t know why that settles his jagged nerves.

Perhaps it’s foolish to take his eyes off you, but he casts a wide glance at the hills and mountains. At the waterfalls and trees that hold so many lives.

“It is beautiful here,” he admits, his voice is rocky but no longer cruel.

“I’m not here to make trouble, cross my heart,” you insist. Borra’s eyes snap to yours again. It occurs to him how much he might’ve scared you.

“How much trouble could one human give?” he asks. If it’s intended as an insult, you sidestep it with the return of your nervous smile.

“I knew you’d understand,” you say. Finally, you stand. But you tuck a stocking into the two pockets of your skirt and pick up your boots by the ankle cuffs rather than slipping them on. “Would you mind helpin’ me get a bit back on track? I’m all mixed-up, no idea where I’m to be goin’ or where I’ve come from.” 

Borra stares at you, but he grunts, and starts to walk back towards the edge of the grass field. You follow after, still smiling. To his back, you make a noise. He stops and turns, your smile falls.

“It’s my name,” you clarify. He nods.

“Borra,” he replies, “that is mine.”

“Oh, Borra,” you exclaim no sooner than a moment after he’s turned away. But you want nothing from him, he realizes before you he can stop again. You’re only glad to know him, the thought makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Though there is no chill, he stifles a shiver.

“What do you need with rampion?” he asks, turning to stare at you again. To his surprise, you’ve moved to keep in stride with him. You tug your skirt up and out of the way, walking quickly. “Humans have enough food of their own.”

You take him by surprise a second time, you share with him the sound of your laugh. It’s a bit disparaging, almost hollow but it’s a laugh nevertheless.

“Not when you’re like me,” you tell him, “when you’re like me, you wonder sometimes if there’s not supposed to be enough. If you’re meant to go hungry.”

He doesn’t know why he bites back his own righteousness, but he does. Maybe it’s the sadness in your voice, or the way you’re already broken enough to laugh about it. His hate runs deep, it won’t be eradicated with a chunk of land and kind words. When humans lack an adversary, they turn on their own. Borra looks away from you.

“I understand,” is all he says and there isn’t any doubt in your mind that he does.


	2. Apart

The rampion is delicious, but perhaps it just feels nice not to starve. And the sun is warmer on your face as you crossed over the bridge, you’re welcomed back with stares and looks of fear aplenty though never in your life have you been less interested.

A change comes over you, though it’s a secret change. Beyond the cramped walls of your mistress’s slender yet opulent home is a world drenched in gold and green. And there is food and people, though you find the man you met a little rude.

Perhaps, you think as you dunk a scrubbing brush into a bucket of sudsy water, he’s more afraid of you than you are of him. It’s not as if you were the one flying hither and yon on an active battlefield.

He was there, Borra. You can tell by the way he stares at you with kneejerk hatred. He knows to watch after humans, not out of curiosity but out of cold fear. He kept glancing at you the whole walk back to the bridge. He stared at your hands as if a knife of iron would suddenly appear.

The scars on him are testament enough to what he is. Warrior, fighter. Some might call him protector, for the sky was quite dark indeed with the wings of his kind. The thrum of their flight was one heartbeat, you remember it well even though you hid.

Dragging the brush along the floor and getting a good deal of water on your apron, you recall those powerful wings of his. They’re not unlike an owl’s, you think with a tight smile. You’ve smiled and laughed more in the past day, it’s making your cheeks hurt.

Half expected him to hoot if he ever did wake, you think to yourself. Another laugh like the one you let out in front of him bubbles in your throat. You doubt he would find that very funny, you laugh harder.

Part of you wishes you’d touched the bits of him that intrigued you most. Those big, tattered wings dusted with old feathers and stray twigs. His horns, long and spiralling like a gazelle from a scarred forehead. They were terrifying at first, but in the picture of your memory they look more noble.

No doubt I’d’ve lost whatever hand I touched him with, you think with a small amount of bitterness. It’s not in your nature to be offended easily, especially not when a whole manner of people find ways to say a whole manner of things to you with little thought of your sensibilities. But you’re not a danger to him, how could you be?

Your speculation holds as much truth as a pail with a hole holds water, but the thought of gossiping about him with the baker’s wife make shiver. She’s kind but the look of her suggests she’s never had a conversation while foraging for ingredients. Borra is not yours, not even remotely but still you think he’d prefer to be a secret.

When the soapy water and yourself are filthy but the floor is clean, you stand and discard the contents out onto the street. After a wash, it’ll be to the kitchens with you. It’s Sunday and the beets need roasting before they can be peeled.

The kitchens are hot and the head cook is an irksome woman, but there is a window. You stare out at the cloudless sky with the knowledge it will never be the same.

—

Borra’s flying again, there’s so much time to make up for. And though the moors are not like his long-lost home with its high peaks and dense forests, he feels free. But for the first time since his arrival, he seeks not to pretend that the kingdom just to the right of his newfound homeland is not there.

Instead, he looks at it with a disdainful curiosity. Though the palace has been reclaimed and an alleged good queen installed, the petty, little people still bustle around in a crowded and dirty space. He would choke there, he’s certain of it, in the city where people go hungry.

He remembers how you looked when you picked the flowers. There was greed in your eyes, but you did not act on it. Borra had no doubt in that moment that every word you said was true, you were something he had never understood; poor.

The notion of it is absurd and raises an anger in him that he doesn’t like. You’ve made him feel. Even if it’s rage, a human has made him feel something. He arcs over the sky, wings spread to catch the gusts of wind to carry him higher.

Up here, with the moors a speck of green and the kingdom a black smear he feels most at home. The heat of the sun on his back is a comfort, it eases the hate in him at how people live. How they let you live.

Did you fear him, is that why you took only a few handfuls of what didn’t belong to you? But you didn’t glance at him, not once. You were staring at purple flowers with soft, black horns. You were thinking not of his approval but of how much you would need to survive.

His hard glare at where you are softens slightly. But then his sneer deepens when he knows he must return to the earth. There are places to explore, places happily void of all simpering humans.

He thinks about you even during the descent, however. Borra wonders if you are ever going to return and nearly speaks out loud that he wishes never to see you again. That might make it real, yes, but the foolishness of it would haunt him. He considers that you might, in fact, come back. He didn’t seem to scare you when he surrendered to bland politeness.

His eyes are orange and terrifying, they have to be. Among his own kind, he can be gentle but the walls he lives behind exist for a reason. Because your people, you, in fact, tore down those that had been built to keep him safe. By force he was extracted from where he ought to be.

It’s easier for the children, they don’t know any better. But he doesn’t envy them nor their parents who have to explain all that was lost. The blissful glaze over their eyes as they try to picture a homeland so scorched and overrun as to now be unrecognizable is the only mercy that’s left. Not Philip’s defiance, not Aurora’s goodness.

He lands with a thump and a flurry of wind by a stream that winds carefully around a willow tree. Borra’s never been to this one, or at least this part of the many rivers cutting through the wild. The will-o-wisps and dandelion fairies call this their home, he’s careful to avoid any buzzing balls of light or little, fluffy, green bodies as they dance underfoot. He walks to the water’s edge and kneels, wings folded behind him so as not to be a nuisance.

The water’s cold on his face, chasing dark memories of home from his mind. Though it won’t be for very long, it never is. It’s never gone, that desert, from him. Borra glowers at his reflection in the water, at the horns he knows terrify your kind.

Carefully, he extends his wings and they fan out behind him. Their span is twice that of his arms. They, too, are frightening. And yet you did not look afraid when the apparent danger had passed. Of course, it made him wary. Comfort only comes when one is in possession of a greater weapon. But on you was no iron you reached for, he searched for any sign of it in the pockets where your stockings were or hidden up a sleeve.

You wouldn’t be able to kill him, but he realizes now as he stares at himself that he would’ve been sorry to kill you. You who spoke differently, who cut the ends of words off your words and smiled at him like a friend.

He stands at the riverbank, the smaller fae have begun to stare at him with nothing short of awe. Borra’s unaccustomed, though he shares a sharp, upward twist of the corner of his mouth. His expression freezes that way and he turns back to the water.

The sight is garish, his smile is like a gash. He turns away from the river and pushes off the ground, taking again to the sky. He’ll not come down again so soon.

—

It’s a week, a whole week of blistered fingers from the clothes iron and a sharp pain up your spine while you lie abed at night. You tuck your hand under your cheek and try to remember how the grass felt underneath you, surely softer than this.

A gruelling few hours spent tossing and turning sounds repulsive when you know what the alternative could be. After a beat and a hard thought, you sit up straight and toss your feet over the edge of the bed.

To hell with this, you think, stripping the quilt from the mattress and folding it up in your arms. Tomorrow you would venture there, anyway.

The streets are quiet as you pad through them. Your feet are bare and the stone is cold, but you move quick enough that the burn is not so unbearable. You wish you had wings.

The bridge rises from the dark like a giant, but it looks nowhere near as bestial as it did when you first crossed it. Instead, walking over the surging water in the dead of night with no eyes to witness you is something of a homecoming.

You remember the way, thankfully, though you unfold your quilt and pull it around your shoulders. The sunshine is gone and the moonlight holds no similar warmth, you shiver even under the fabric stitched to resembled a basket of flowers. But you push on, it will be more comfortable here than even in your mistress’ bed, you’re certain of it.

The grass looks like silver under the risen moon. You smile at it, at the smell of earth as you wade into the expanse. Unlike before, you’re not captivated by a hundred sights. The mountains do loom, but you’re not tempted to walk to them. Near the edge of the tall grass, you make something of a nest.

Your blanket is heavy on top of you, but sleep doesn’t come as quickly as it did during your nap. The moors are alive with sound in the way the manor house is not. Crickets chirp, that you understand but there is a faint song somewhere far away. A ringing bell at a great distance. A whispered voice in a language you don’t understand. Things live here, things are thriving here despite the best efforts of the queen to kill them all.

Softly, you sigh to the night. It’s not much of a sound, but you contribute in some, small way to the symphony of life. For the first time in some time, you feel heard. Important. Alive.


	3. Together

The irony of finding you asleep this time is not lost on him in the least. He’s half-sure you’ll wake at the sound of his landing, but you prove as heavy a sleeper as he.

What a place for a human to find themselves, he considers you might’ve slept-walked all the way across the bridge to return to somewhere you felt safe. That’s an odd thought, he acknowledges, very few feel safe that do not come from here. The otherness is off-putting, perhaps intentionally so.

But there is another option, he supposes, that no sleepwalking was required. You might’ve picked up your quilt and your feet all on your own and decided to come. He does not know what is worse.

Part of him, a very large part considers leaving you again. But you were able to observe him without him knowing for a while, at worst and he considers this opportunity to be a chance to repay it. He sit heavily in the grass, some distance from you and he watches as your chest rises and falls.

There is something peaceful and easy about your sleeping expression, just as there is your waking one. But the exhaustion, the worry you carry in your eyes is gone as they are closed. He’s not sure if he’s pleased to see its absence, you’re a stranger who might deserve everything that weighs on your mind. Or you might not be, you are young, even by human standards.

But it’s pointless to waste time wondering if pain is deserved or not. It will be felt all the same by some, regardless of their age. Misery is undiscerning.

You shift in your sleep and Borra tenses, half-expecting you to wake with a scream. His eyes opening to see a beautiful woman in the sunlight will be very different to what you see when you do wake. He hopes you’ll scream, if only to prove himself right about you.

He chooses not to dwell on why, exactly, he considers you beautiful. Though he does, as humans can often be. There can be sweetness in their hard, cold faces. There can be love in their hearts, even if it’s twisted and self-satisfying. And you’ve given him no reason to despise you. A few months ago he might not have needed one, the virtue of your species would have been enough.

Things are different, now. He remembers your rush to help him understand, assuming he might not have heard there was a change. A move towards tolerance sounds lovely to the ears, but it is very different in practice.

Borra wonders if you were given filthy looks, returning from the moors with your shoes cast off and your basket no longer empty. Your family might’ve scorned you, perhaps even enough to come back. Perhaps he’ll ask you that, just to be cruel.

He doesn’t know how long he sits in the night air, listening to sounds of life. Did you hear it? He thinks. Could humans hear something so beautiful, could they understand it? Likely not.

It’s a few hours before dawn when you shift again. You turn on to your back, a restlessness coming over you. Not quite a nightmare, but you’re surely waking now.

With a soft sigh and a low grunt of frustration, you join him. You move slowly, almost with some protest as you rouse yourself. You shift under your quilt until you’re sitting up, eyes still closed.

“Goodness me,” you start, “it does get quite cold out here.” You look over your shoulder, rubbing at your eyelids and fumbling blindly for the edge of your quilt. You tug it up your lap. “Would’ve offered to share the quilt if you’d shown up a bit sooner.”

“How long have you known I was here?” Borra asks, he straightens up out of habit. He’s taller than you, even sitting and his shoulders are painfully straight.

“Could hear you breathin’,” you say, but it’s said with a fondness he doesn’t expect. “And I was hopin’ you’d come find me, considerin’ I’m often lost and likely wouldn’t’ve found you.”

“Hoping?” He asks again. Part of him feels foolish.

“Aye, I know you and you haven’t tried to kill me so that makes us friends,” you reply, too easily. Borra’s eyes drop to his lap.

Friends, he thinks, though he doesn’t care enough to correct you. You’re not his friend, but he can do nothing to stop you considering him yours.

“Have you been cast out?” he asks as he intended to, “is that why you’re here? Humans talk of change and yet some things are always the same.”

“Cast out by who?” you return, your voice drags and you turn to face him. Craning your neck is beginning to hurt.

“Your kind,” he clarifies, “your family.” He’s greatly surprised by your bark of laughter. It rings out like a bell through the field.

“Haven’t got any, and my mistress is quite liberal. Not enough to increase my wages but she cares little for where I go when I’m not bein’ paid,” you say it so casually, Borra doesn’t know if he should be angered.

“Then why have you come back?” a simple question, but oddly enough the one that seems to confuse you best. You bite your lip, your piercing stare finally falling. He feels like he’s won.

“I like it here,” you say, “I feel happy here, seen. D’you know what that’s like? To go from bein’ nothin’ to somethin’ in a blink?”

He does, that’s why he neglects to answer. You already know what his response would be. Slowly, you nod.

“This isn’t my home, nor is it my belongin’ but I do feel, somewhere, like I belong here. ‘Cause here there aren’t any floors that need scrubbin’. There’re enough hours in the day,” you continue. Borra’s brow furrows.

“What do you mean?” he asks, you shrug.

“Here, I can spend the day sleepin’ without that awful feelin’ of guilt, you see. Time isn’t wasted because how I want to spend my time is my decision. The only things what need doin’ are what I want to do,” you explain. And that, to Borra, does make sense.

“In the city, you run out of time?” he continues. A small part of Borra is concerned with the number of questions he’s asking. You’ve already considered him a fool once before. But you’re speaking of things he doesn’t fully understand, he throws caution to the wind in exchange for answers.

“You think I want to wake this early? Sometimes it’s the only way to fit everything in,” you look up at the stars, still moving across the dark of the sky. They’re growing dimmer by the minute as the sun starts to rise. “Have you slept tonight?”

Borra doesn’t expect a question in turn, especially not when you seem to like talking to the extent you do. His eyes go hard again, he wonders if you might be mocking him.

“Why?” he asks. Just because there was no iron on your person last time means very little.

“Friends worry about these kinds of things,” you tell him. Borra scoffs, but to his shock, you look hurt. “I’ve offended you? I didn’t mean to.”

He doesn’t reply. He considering the sky overhead, how awful it must be to wake before the sun can warm you. Not that he would know much about either, it’s only a recent discovery that he’d like very much not to lose. You are not his friend, he will insist that, but you do have his understanding.

“I’m sorry,” you try when he neglects to answer you. Borra wonders why you need so fiercely for him to tolerate you, even if you are tolerant. “For the queen and the battle,” you continue, “for everythin’. Humans here don’t know much about fae. What we don’t know, we assume will kill us.”

“Clearly that is not your assumption,” he grumbles, “I half-expected you to scream at the sight of me.”

“That what most people do?” you ask, shifting forward just slightly with your quilt. The night is still cold, even as the sun starts to rear its head.

“Yes,” he answers. His voice is quieter than you expect.

“This place, the moors— its yours. I know it isn’t mine. But I’m glad there’s somewhere safe for you, now. I can’t speak for all the people in the world but I don’t want to spoil this for you,” you pause a beat, and then you smile, “and I don’t want to scream at you, Borra.”

He’s at a loss, thinking of Maleficent with the children in her nest high up in the cliffs. She loved a human like her own daughter, once, and from what she’s told it was quite by accident. Borra looks at you, leaning towards him with no fear, ready to apologize.

Humans in general are a swarm of flies fighting, they push and they hate and they cluster together. It’s so hard to differentiate, sometimes, to make the swarm part long enough to know them one by one.

Borra dislikes how much he knows about you, already. He knows you are young, tired and trapped across the water in that dreadful city. He knows you rise too early and likely sleep too late. You come here with no weapon, in need of little and in this case in need of nothing at all.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” you tell him, he doesn’t know why. “I just kept thinkin’ about right here and how much I never wanted to leave. So I had to come back.” Your hand rises to cover your mouth. You yawn and roll your shoulders, leaning back in the grass.

“You are still tired,” he says, it isn’t a question.

“Are you makin’ fun of me, now?” you ask, but you smile behind your fingers. As if in response to his statement, you yawn again. “If I go back to sleep, are you gonna sit there and scowl at me?”

Borra hears your laugh again, you’ve told another joke. Before he can stop himself, his gash-smile he saw in the river pulls at the corner of his mouth. It horrified him, then but he does not realize it’s happened until your hand drops.

You’re staring at him, not with fear but instead surprise. Quickly, you right yourself, worried that being so openly shocked by something as simple as a smile might deter him from it in the future.

“I’m not so tired, in answer to your question. And I’d like to see a little of the moors, if you’d be kind enough to show me,” you continue. To the east, an orange glow peers over the edge of the valley. The sun will bring out everything beautiful here, how could you sleep through that?

Borra grunts again, just as passive as the first time he asked you for help. But this isn’t as easy a task as escorting you back to the bridge. He tells himself that he agrees only to expedite a painful process, but the look of delight that crosses your face, the way you clap your hands together in earnest thanks is something he could get used to.


End file.
